


Variations

by thermodynamicActivity (chlorinetrifluoride)



Series: The Collegestuck 'Verse [7]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, One-Sided Attraction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-06-07 16:40:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6813838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chlorinetrifluoride/pseuds/thermodynamicActivity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dolores bursts out laughing once more, and you decide to add that sound to your mental repertoire of beautiful things. You are Simon, you are twenty, and you help her out in her garden. The more often you go over to her house, the more you learn. About her. About life. About everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Variations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dogslug](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dogslug/gifts).



> Yeah so I finally got to posting the (mostly one-sided) psiirosa fic i wrote part of last week during spring break.
> 
> Dogslug, I blame you for this and for everything that follows in this story.

_**April 1998 - Simon Cao** _

You are not afraid of anything, least of all the thought of meeting your roommate’s mother. Not even slightly scared. Nope. That’s why you’ve dug your only clean dress shirt - who are you kidding? This is probably the only dress shirt you own that Carolyn didn’t buy you - out of your closet, and ironed it, along with a pair of gray dress pants.

The fact that she’s not Krishna’s _actual_ biological mother doesn’t make the prospect of meeting her any less scary.

Nevertheless, how fearsome could she possibly be? She raised one of the kindest, most empathetic, stupidly naive people you know.

So you shouldn’t be afraid of her, unless she already knows about that time he bent you over your desk and… _well…_ You really hope she doesn’t know about that, otherwise you might die on the spot.

It's not like you and Krishna ever talk about it.

It was one of those one-off things people do in the heat of the moment. He didn't mean anything significant by it, after all he's dating Cat. Right after, that relieved you. The dynamic between you and your roommate had not been completely whacked off balance.

Now, you pretend - quite well - not to feel left out by this arrangement. 

Yeah, whatever.

You sign onto AOL while Krishna’s in the shower, and beg Cat to give you every single detail she knows about this woman. You need intel and you need it fast.

AC: >:33 She’s really furriendly, I purromise!  
AC: >:33 She even taught me how to make cassava cakes last time I went over there.  
AC: >:33 Just don’t say anything stupid, Si, and mew will be fine.  
TA: “Don’t say anything stupid, Si”  
TA: Might as well tell Feynman two stop being green.  
AC: >:33 Feynman is green?  
TA: My aloe plant, Katya.  
TA: Not the dead physicist.  
AC: >:33 I can’t k33p up with all your plants, so I mean…  
AC: >:33 And that’s the other thing! How did I forget to tell mew?  
TA: Tell me what?  
AC: >:33 She likes to garden, so that’s already one thing in your favor.  
AC: >:33 Just tell her how mew ask your plants fur advice on the regular and she’ll purrobably like mew.  
AC: >:33 On second thought, don’t. That’s still cr33py as hell.  
TA: As always, you are a veritable goldmine of excellent advice  
TA: II have no idea where II would be without your counsel.  
AC: >:33 I’m going to purretend mew were not being sarcastic there! Good luck, Simon!  
TA: II am going two need it.

You and Krishna dress in near silence, which must be some kind of miracle, considering his propensity for incessant chatter. Something happened to shut him the hell up for once, and you have no idea what it is.

You make an attempt to marshal your hair into something approaching tidy, but struggle to discern your reflection in the fogged up bathroom mirror. So that’s out. You shake your bangs from your eyes so you can see clearly and figure that’s neat enough.

Krishna picks his afro out without the benefit of a mirror, and you’re slightly envious of this ability on his part. He also avoids your gaze when it flicks in his direction.

You zip your pants and roll your eyes. You’re already scared enough without Krishna having one of his weird Krishna episodes, so you’d better nip this in the bud before the two of you leave the dorms.

You scowl at him. “What the fuck crawled up your ass and died?”

“Pardon?” he asks.

You repeat the question even more loudly.

Instead of castigating you for your language choices, he gives an brief little laugh. Coughs into his hand. Turns away and continues picking his afro.

“I suppose I’m just nervous, is all,” he says. “I’ve always been nervous introducing Mama to friends of mine.”

Wait, does that mean his mother knows about you and him and…?

If you didn’t love him so much that it frequently hurts to contemplate, you’d throttle him. Where does he get off just telling his mom about this sort of thing without asking you about it?

Krishna must sense your simmering fury because he’s got an arm around your shoulders before you can fume any further. You resist the momentary urge to slap him upside the head.

“I didn’t tell her.” He presses a kiss to the shell of your ear. “She figured it out. My mother is perceptive.”

“She figured out we had sex without ever meeting me?”

“From the way I talked about you.”

“Great.”

So this is how you meet your last stand, Simon. Not at the bottom of an empty brandy bottle, but at some older woman’s house downtown. You’d draft your last will and testament before you leave, but it’s not like you really have any assets. The combined balance between your checking and savings account is a whopping $37.50.

* * *

There are two locks on the gate, and two locks on the front door leading into Krishna’s mother’s house. You tear your gaze from the carefully manicured shrubs in the front yard - _Jesus fucking Christ, did the landscaper check the tops with a leveling tool or something_ \- to appreciate the symmetry of the locks.

Yeah, you’re a weirdo. But the idiot in front of you loves you anyway, so that counts for something. Krishna leads you up the front steps, and into a darkened hallway.

He stops for a moment, perplexed.

He flips the hall light on. “I know she said she’d be home today, but…”

He removes his shoes at the welcome mat and gestures for you to do the same.

“Maybe she went grocery shopping?” he asks, more to himself than to you.

You nod once, curt, as if it makes no difference. Privately, you kick yourself for letting your stomach tie itself into knots during the long train ride from Morningside Heights into Bed-Stuy.

All that anxiety over meeting this woman, and she doesn’t even seem to be around. You follow Krishna into the living room, and he gives one great shrug.

“Feel free to sit down wherever.”

You plop yourself onto the nearest flat surface, a padded, high-backed chair whose cushions have been embroidered in green.

He frowns.

You scowl, pushing your glasses back up the bridge of your nose.

“What.”

“Except there, that’s Mama’s chair.”

“Well, if you woulda said something, you fucking idiot, then I wouldn’t have–”

“And no cursing in my mother’s house!” he adds, with a huff.

You roll your eyes spectacularly. It’s not like she’s within earshot, not unless she’s hiding, and the woman who raised your dipshit of a roommate doesn’t strike you as being the hiding sort. Maybe she’s hiding and waiting to kill you, with like, a chainsaw, or something. There to put you out of your misery before final exams.

You get out of his mother’s chair, and make yourself comfortable on the couch, properly taking in your surroundings at last. There’s a spider plant resting in a giant pot on an end table, one that seems far happier than yours. Most likely because it has more room to breathe.

Krishna walks over to a staircase, probably the one that leads up to the second level of the house. He cups his hands over his mouth.

“Mama?” he calls. A beat. No answer.

He calls again.

Still no answer.

He pouts, an expression that makes him look much younger, like the kid he must have been when he ran around this house on a regular basis. You can almost see the child version of him peeking out from behind flowerpots.

“Mama?” He tries a final time.

Nothing.

He crosses his arms over his chest, both annoyed and worried now, but you’ve long since begun to ignore him.

On another table is a jade plant, at least, what looks like a jade plant in your estimation. You get up to examine it, gently rolling a smooth, fat leaf between your thumb and forefinger.

You were right. Of course you were right. You should have told Physics to go fuck itself and majored in Botany or something.

Krishna chuckles, observing you. “I see that you’re enjoying yourself.”

True enough. These plants are well-maintained, and he hasn’t yet forbidden you from touching or breathing on them, unlike that chair, so why wouldn’t you be?

You haven’t enjoyed yourself this much since you still lived over on Euclid Avenue with your parents, before you left - or ran away during a manic episode, more like - before you moved in with –

Your mind swings wildly on its axis, and you feel that metaphorical slammed-door sensation that tells you that you need to stop thinking and fast, before you have some kind of freaky panic attack in this cozy house.

You don’t want to flip out and break anything. Especially since it’s clear that this woman has taken pains to decorate. So you attempt your deep breathing bullshit, and focus on the plants in front of you.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, for _whatever reason_ , you haven’t had a garden in a while, and no, the few plants you’ve managed to cram-jam into your side of the dorm room do not count as one.

You’d grow a proper one on the roof of the building, if you could find an unscrupulous security guard and bribe him with enough money to allow you rooftop access.

“You should see the backyard,” Krishna adds, sitting down on the armrest of the sofa, not quite close enough to touch you. He must have picked up on your feelings yet again, or at least some stray bit of cognition. You hate it when he does that. You love him for it.  

You nod at him, suddenly feeling all at once happy and nostalgic around all this greenery, wondering if your parents would faint if you showed up on their doorstep today.

Not to see them or anything, just to check on your rosebush _(so you’d say)_.

You wonder if they even still live on Euclid Avenue, your family. You decide that they must. Jiang-li, no, _Jacqueline_ , would have told you if something that major had changed, probably in between calling you an asshole and a disappointment of an older brother, both titles you really do deserve.

You inhale through your nose, and lean your head on Krishna’s thigh, saying nothing when he cups your face and leans down to kiss you on the mouth, his stupid goatee tickling your face. What's he playing at?

It’s not exactly a kiss. More like a furtive peck that leaves the two of you red-faced and glancing around just in case his mother does happen to be home.

As a (mostly) functional drunk and a cynical douche, you are not exactly known for making good first impressions, but macking on your friend in his own mother’s house would be pretty bad, even for you. One for the record books. Or a story to tell Katya to see how long it’d take her to close her mouth properly.

You recall Krishna’s earlier offer, about the backyard, and decide to answer.

“So can we see it?”

Way to sound overexcited, Simon.

“I don’t see why not,” he replies.

You try to keep your eyes on the floor while you follow him, lest something in between the living room and the backyard trigger another bout of homesickness. You don’t need that shit today; you almost preferred the sensation of being terrified of meeting Krishna’s mom.

And unlike the front door, which wouldn’t have budged for a machine gun, the back door seems downright flimsy in comparison. The iron gate only has one lock.

You stroll outside with Krishna, and give your eyes a few seconds to readjust to the sun.

You do nothing more or less than stare in slack-jawed awe for a while. This garden resembles something out of one of those glossy magazines, as painstakingly maintained as the rest of the house, perhaps even more so. Except it’s real. And right in front of you.

It’s like someone took a chunk out of the Botanical Garden and plopped it down right here.

There’s even a little birdbath on the far side of the yard. _A birdbath for what?_ you ask yourself half-jokingly. _The pigeons?_

Meanwhile, a dark-skinned woman kneels in the grass near the house, pulling up weeds with such vehemence that you’d think they’d done something personal to wrong her.

And at the sound of the door closing, the woman stares up at the pair of you, dark green gaze half-wary and half-confused. She raises her gloved hand, as if to wave, but Krishna beats her to the draw.

“Mama!” he exclaims, his voice cracking on the second syllable.

He dashes over to her, pitching forward and sliding in the grass and dirt on his knees.

She catches him easily for a woman so compact in build, the gold bracelets around her wrists gleaming in the sunlight as her hands come up to embrace him. She murmurs something - what you would later learn was “my love” in Kreyol - and smiles against his neck all the while.

Then, she adjusts the collar of his shirt, and quirks an eyebrow, her lips drawn drum-tight in what would be an annoyed line, were the corners of her mouth not twitching on the verge of another smile.  

“Was all of that that quite necessary?” she asks, shaking her head.

“All of what?”

She points down to the knees of his pants, hopelessly stained in green and brown.

“Your pants, love.”

He mumbles a shy, “Sorry, Mama.”

“I made those just for you, and look at them now.”

“Sorry,” he repeats.

You can definitely imagine a twelve year old him, just as thoughtless, and a younger version of his mother, just as reproachful. They fit together like two pieces of a puzzle, and yes, Simon, you are undeniably homesick.

(You try not to imagine Jackie’s pigtails, one hair tie blue and the other red, bouncing against her back as she rides her bike up Pitkin Avenue. She would turn to you and wave and you’d shout at her to keep her eyes focused straight ahead lest she get hit by a car at the intersection.

This was back before she learned how to hate you for taking up all your parents’ attention with your exploits, for breaking their hearts with your self-loathing. She brought home report card after report card full of straight A’s, did everything she was supposed to and then some, but you were the one they focused on, because you were always the one doing dumb shit.

You never meant to hurt anyone but yourself, they were just collateral damage.

One day you’ll tell her this, during one of the stilted phone conversations the two of you have three or four times a year.

_“How’s high school?”_

_“Hard.”_

You try not to imagine her earlier this year - a tenth grader still wearing her hair in the old pigtails - standing, furious, at the front door for your dorm building. A red envelope clenched in her fist, that she foisted upon you before turning on her heel and leaving without a word.

“From Mother and Father,” it read.

And though the gesture brought tears to your eyes, you know you weren’t the sort of son they wanted.

Better that your sister have them to herself now, little as she understands that you have given her a blessing in disguise. She was always the dutiful sane one, and you were the fuckup with a knack for smoking cigarettes, throwing away your medication, and fake IDing your way into clubs on the lower east side.

You take off your glasses and swipe at your eyes, but you don’t need to cry. Not right now.)

Then, you glance at Krishna and his mother again. They speak to each other in a language you cannot understand, although their joy comes through loud and clear.

You are intruding on their family moment like one of those weeds Krishna’s mother keeps pulling up. Guilt needles up and down your spine. You look at the woman again.

It’s more difficult to imagine a younger version of her. Despite, or because of, the faint lines at the corners of her eyes, she could pass for a tired twenty-something, sort of like you, except you’re not in your thirties, or your forties, or however old she is. It’s not like you’re going to ask her.

She lets go of her son, plucks the dark gloves from her hands, one finger at a time, along with her heavy canvas apron.

Then, she extends one sepia-colored hand to you.

“And you must be Simon, whom I have heard so much about.”

Hands still in your pockets, you swallow nervously and nod. “That’s me.”

You take her hand, and pull her up to a standing position.

If she notices your tremors and twitches, brought on by years of taking antipsychotic medication, she says nothing.

She’s even lighter than she appears to be, no mean feat, but she hugs you tightly, body settling against yours. She can’t be more than five foot four, if even that. She smells of earth and life and, faintly, of some sort of perfume.

Your heart hammers out a staccato beat long after she steps away.

“Pleased to meet you,” she says, sounding genuine. You can’t imagine why or how.  

You scratch at the back of your head, a little lost for words.

“Me too, Ms, uh…”

You trail off like an idiot. You know she doesn’t have the same last name as Krishna, Katya apprised you of that much, but you forgot the last name she told you.

“Martineau,” the woman supplies. “Though you may call me Dolores. Or Dolo. Most everyone calls me Dolo.”

Krishna grins, and plants a kiss on her left temple.

“I don’t call you Dolo, ma.”

She shoots him a glance as if to say, “well, no shit”, and you force yourself not to laugh.

You take one quick step back, and trip over a trowel that you should have seen. You did see it, resting in the grass, not a minute or two before.

Then it’s Dolo, tugging you one-handedly to a standing position before you land on your ass in her garden. She’s slight and much shorter than you, but there’s something of a concealed strength about her.

“Careful, my dear,” she tells you, once you’re steady on your feet again.  

You try not to stare at her too openly, acutely aware of the blush suffusing its way across your cheeks.

She might take it the wrong way. Or the right way. Whichever way is more damning, you don’t know. You really wish your heart rate would simmer down.

Seriously, Simon, this is your friend’s mom. What are you even playing at?

It’s then that Krishna lets out several bellowing sneezes, covering his nose with his hand.

When he thinks Dolo’s eyes are turned away, he wipes his mouth on the back of his sleeve. For a second, all is silent, Dolo gazing at him with concern. Until Krishna sneezes again.

“You haven’t been taking your allergy medication,” she concludes, with a sigh.

“Finals, Mama, I’ve been swamped in so much work for Lit Hum that I can barely discern up from down anymore, let alone remember to take pills I barely even need,” he replies.

You snort.

“And yet somehow you find time to give me shit whenever I skip my meds.” Then you recall where you are. “Excuse my language, please, I’m sorry.”

Dolores waves the apology off, leaning back against the house. She deposits her apron and gloves in the grass.

She neatens Krishna’s hair and tells him to go wash up and change. Not to come back into the garden, lest he aggravate his allergies further. Suggests that he go see his father, since he’s already in the neighborhood, and Mr. Vandayar has begun to wonder if his son is even alive anymore. Points out that by the time he’s done all that, she might have lunch ready.

This woman is undeniably his mother. You recognize the basic beat of his lectures in her tone.

Krishna agrees to all of it, but not before he takes a little cassette case out of his shoulderbag.

“I got you the music you wanted,” he says, voice brightening with pride. “Took me a while, Mama, but I found it.”

So that’s why he was dragging you and Katya around Harlem yesterday, through every single music store, trying to hunt down one specific album by some obscure band. Dolo accepts the gift with a broad smile, and another hug for him.

“Always thoughtful, you are,” she says. “My dearest son.”

“Your only son.”

“That too.”

You stand a small ways off from them, feeling out of place again. You wonder if you could ask Dolores to use her phone, just make a quick call. You’ll hang up if your mother picks up, but if it’s your father, or Jackie…

No use in dredging up the past, though.

_What would you even tell them?_

Dolores inclines her head in your direction, and apologizes for having ignored you, and for not being a proper hostess. This lady is so old school that it makes you smile. She offers you the choice of staying with her in the garden, or going with Krishna to see his father.

If Dolores did not possess this magical ability to leave you completely tongue-tied, you would have quipped that you’d only planned on meeting one parent today and hadn’t prepared your will accordingly, but instead you do nothing but stand there for a minute or two.

“I, uh…” You chew on your lip. “I like plants more than people, so I mean…” You give Krishna a vaguely apologetic look. “Sorry, man.”

_Smooth one, Simon._

Dolores laughs like you’ve actually said something funny. Krishna is completely unsurprised.

“I knew you’d adore the garden.” An aside glance at his mother. “Be careful, Mama. He’s probably going to try to move in.”

“Can you blame me?”

“Not in the least,” he replies, and then disappears inside. More importantly, once he leaves, and you only realize it once he’s gone, you are officially alone with Dolores.

Dolores, who is the kind of woman who becomes more attractive the longer you look at her.

The mole just above her left eyebrow. How her smile crinkles with dimples. The way she carries herself with a measured grace, not pretentious, just self-assured. Someone certain of her place in the scheme of things.

Even her voice is pleasing to the ear.

You really need to think out your plans before you execute them, because you, Simon, have the world’s worst poker face. The mild chilly wind does you a favor by obscuring most of your face with your bangs, so you can at least pretend that you’re not gawping at her like an idiot while you gawp at her like an idiot.

“So I take it that you like gardening,” Dolores says, once the silence between you has become absolutely intolerable.

Yeah. You do. You surely do.

You’re not sure when your response to her remark turns into a whole lot of babbling about all the plants in your dorm room, how you wish you could have a legit garden but there’s no space for that kind of thing in college.

You tell her about the rosebush at your childhood home down on Euclid Avenue, how it came with the house, and your mother made cursory attempts to care for it, but you were the one to maintain the damn thing. It was your personal project, yours and your sister’s _(sort of)_.

At some point in your early adolescence, a whole load of honeybees made a home in a tree on your parents’ property, and you convinced them not to call an exterminator, that they weren’t dangerous. They were just hanging out, the kind of animals that wouldn’t fuck with you as long as you didn’t fuck with them. Besides, they were useful as pollinators.

You were the science genius, and you’d read like a zillion books on insects, so your parents took your word for it, although you’re fairly certain they’ve since gotten rid of the beehive since you left. They only kept it around for you.

“My room at college, though,” you go on, “most of the plants are succulents. Cacti and an aloe plant, which I’ve had for like, fucking forever, probably. Them, and a dysthymic spider plant.”

Dolores cracks an actual grin, and you decide you really like when she does that. You hope you can make her do it again.

“Dysthymic spider plant?” she repeats.

“Yeah, like yours is clearly having a good time just chilling on your table. Mine, though…” You think for a sec. “I need to repot it, give it some room to spread out. But it stands, or, uh, sits rather, it just looks profoundly sad all the time.”

She stops wrinkling her nose at the remaining weeds in her garden for long enough to laugh at that statement. You wonder why she doesn’t finish the job, since there aren’t that many to go.

Then, midway through your story about how Katya managed to kill the plant you gave her for her 17th birthday, and only two weeks after the fact, you notice Dolores frowning and rubbing at her wrists. At the joints in her hands.

Something clicks in your head.

Your father has arthritis too.

You ask Dolores how she’s feeling, and she gives you a rueful smile in return.

“I’ll be fine, Simon, don’t you worry.”

She makes to put her gardening gloves back on, but winces visibly at the effort, a small sound of pain escaping her lips.

“Fuck,” she mutters into her hand.

You take the gloves from her.

You can’t put them on, but you know that she shouldn’t exert herself any further. It’ll just make everything worse.

“Maybe I could help you?” you offer. At her skepticism, you add, “I don’t mind weeding. It’s relaxing work.”

She seems to consider this for a second, gazing at you carefully.

“I don’t know if I have gloves large enough for your hands.”

You snort, and kneel down in the grass, right in front of the weeds. “I don’t need ‘em. Dirt doesn’t really bother me too much.”

She starts to say something about you potentially damaging your skin like this, but trails off before she can finish, because you’ve already begun doing the work. She wrings her hands, rubs them together, and gives you the tiniest nod of assent.

“Knock yourself out,” she finally says, with a sigh.

“Oh, I will.”

You totally will. You stare around the garden again. Krishna was right. You’re totally moving in, pitching a tent next to her tomato plants or something. You’ll pay rent and stuff.

You tug at a cluster of dandelions, slowly, slowly, so you can dig them out by their roots.

You push aside other thoughts as you work; you weren’t bullshitting Dolo when you told her that you found this activity to be relaxing.

It’s long since been proven that your hair attracts small stray objects almost magnetically. Dolores sits down beside you in the grass, crosslegged, and plucks an errant dandelion from your hair.

Maybe you’re just imagining it, because time slows to a dizzying crawl whenever Dolores gets close to you, but her fingers seem to linger for just a second longer than necessary.

“Thank you for your assistance.”

“S’no problem at all.”

On impulse, you take the dandelion from her and blow seeds into her face, as something of a goof. Then you remember that she is neat and exacting and not some stupid kid, and you’ve probably pissed her off.

However, she doesn’t look angry in the least. She merely asks you what you wished for.

Oh yeah. That’s a thing people do.

You decide not to bullshit her, and flat out tell her that you forgot to make a wish on the stupid weed. In fact, that is exactly what you say. 

She bursts out laughing once more, and you decide to add that sound to your mental repertoire of beautiful things.

Maybe she’ll let you help out here again. You hope she does.

And you hope Krishna takes his time coming back.


End file.
